Rick Perry today spread a web video accusing Mitt Romney of taking two sides on a centerpiece of Barack Obama's education policy, Race to the Top. The issue came up in Thursday's debate in Orlando and Romney distanced himself from earlier comments, made a few days earlier in Miami. But in attacking Romney, Perry is by extension taking a shot at Jeb Bush, who has praised Obama's initiatives. ... The Washington Post notes that Perry selectively edited out the end of Romney's remarks, where he says "but for me, get that back to the state level."

The dune sagebrush lizard is a 3-inch critter that lives only among stands of shinnery oak, which itself is a somewhat rare tree that lives only in the sandy soil on something like 4 million acres spread between Roswell, New Mexico and Midland, Texas. The area around Midland is known as the Permian Basin, and is one of the oldest and most prolific crude oil regions in North America.

A life coach’s open letter to Carrie Prejean, including some suggested affirmations: Dear Carrie -- Since you’ve decided to put yourself in the spotlight by writing a book about your experience in the Miss USA pageant, and subsequently invite all forms of reaction to it, I’m writing to put in my two cents. I don’t know you, but after reading Still Standing it seems that what you think about gay marriage is small potatoes. Your story is about so much more than that now. It’s about shining a scathing spotlight on that throwback to the 1950s -- the pageant circuit....

Merry Christmas!Greetings Singles! A few months ago, we decided to try to run a monthly thread, but as you can see, we haven't had much luck. Life has been busy for me and I know for at least one other host. We've had the misfortune of seeing the least qualified candidate ever nominated by either party elected to our nation's highest office, and that event has certainly hurt the morale of many of us. By this time next year, Pelosi, Reid, and SOBama may have shut down Free Republic by application of the so-called "fairness doctrine." They're doing their best...

Welcome to the Weekend Singles' Thread - Open Line Weekend" Rush Limbaugh has been a success on the radio for nearly twenty years and once a week offers his listeners the chance to choose a topic for daily discussion. In the year-plus that we've hosted this thread, we've never made a similar offer, so on behalf of your hosts, I'm declaring "Open Line Weekend," the weekend when you the posters get to choose the topics. You get to choose any main topics or just ask random "bonus questions." I may chime in with a bonus question or two later, but...

WASHINGTON — If the presidential election goes to the dogs, John McCain is looking like best in show. From George Washington’s foxhound “Drunkard” to George W. Bush’s terriers “Barney” and “Miss Beazley,” pets are a longtime presidential tradition for which the presumed Republican nominee seems well prepared, with more than a dozen. The apparent Democratic nominee Barack Obama, on the other hand, does not have a pet at home, although he has promised his daughters a dog after the election, win or lose. The pet-owning public seems to have noticed the difference. An AP-Yahoo News poll found that pet owners...

Welcome to the Weekend Singles' Thread!! This weekend's topic is crushes, and once again, this one wasn't my idea. The idea may still be interesting, and we'll see what people have to say. Just in case, I'm going to try to give some extra bonus questions. A couple of things are true about crushes. First, everyone has had them. Second, I'm not sure that anyone really likes admitting them. If I'm right, maybe this will be a difficult thread, but I'm not going to ask anyone to admit to anything. A third thing about crushes may be that we don't...

Americans like the freedom to travel. That trait makes sense. This continent was settled by people who were willing to travel in order to make a better life. One could say that the association between freedom to travel and prosperity is in our genes. The old GM commercial said, "It's not just your car. It's your freedom." Movement has always been a defining part of our culture. Today, we have cars. In the past, we had horses. In either case, the means of travel was personal and represented a private possession. Our heritage and history are not oriented towards mass...

Welcome to the Weekend Singles' Thread!! We all have certain conversations or kinds of conversations that we thoroughly hate. On a singles' thread, maybe the first one that comes to mind is the "just friends" talk. Most of us hate to be on either end of that one. Maybe a few people enjoy giving that talk but not receiving that talk. I don't want us to focus on just that conversation, but I want to throw open the general topic. What accident was I in and what head injury did I have that made me come up with this subject?...

Welcome to the Weekend Singles' Thread The last thread I hosted was called "The Bucket List" and was based loosely on a movie that I'd never seen. I'm repeating the idea of threads about movies I've never seen again this week. In my defense, this one wasn't my idea. Someone else suggested a discussion of platonic friendships between men and women and the idea from the "Harry met Sally" movie that those friendships can't exist. I'm going to add an idea from a news story this week in part because the story seemed amusing and in part because I wonder...

Welcome to the Weekend Singles Thread! For a few months this winter, I regularly saw ads for a movie called The Bucket List. I haven't seen a movie in years, and I was never all that excited about seeing this one. However, the ads made clear the theme of the movie. Apparently, two old friends make a list of things that each of them would like to do before they die or "kick the bucket" as the old expression goes. They decide that they will do these things together, and the rest of the movie is about their adventures as...

In a few minutes, I'm going to bed. When I awake in the morning, Florida Republicans will be voting in the Republican primary. By this time tomorrow night, we may know which candidate has won Florida's 57 delegates to the Republican National Convention. The media will spend all day promoting the Florida primary as the deciding factor in 2008 primary race. Doing so will help them get better ratings tonight and sell papers tomorrow. By Thursday, the media will be declaring that the race for the nomination is not finished. Whether they believe that the race is finished or not,...

Welcome to the Weekend Singles Thread Okay, here's the story. I'm sick, and I'm grumpy. We don't have a planned topic for tonight, so I'm going to try to make a "good" from two "bads" or a "right" from two "wrongs." I arrived home from Christmas vacation on the 29th of December with a sore throat. I spent the 30th, the 31st, and the 1st trying to get better but only got worse. I worked on the 2nd and 3rd. I was off the 4th through the 6th and actually got better. I wasn't 100%, but I was close. I...

You're wading knee-deep in science if you're following the presidential primaries this year, but in some cases, the candidates' positions are as clear as mud. Stem-cell research, climate change, alternative fuels and creationism versus evolution in public education are acknowledged by even some of the most marginalized candidates. More broadly, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain and Barack Obama have directly criticized the current Bush Administration for its science policies, with accusations — based on numerous media reports — ranging from data distortion to research censorship. "I respect scientists and the scientific method, so I believe that policy should be...

Usually it's a cuddly teddy bear or a favourite action figure that kids need before they can get to bed. But not for Cambodian six-year-old Sambath Uon; he needs "Lucky", his trusty six-metre long python, before he can sleep. "I love the python like my sister," Sambath said. "All my friends are jealous of her." Sambath first encountered the snake when he was three months old, and Lucky was only 50cm. His parents didn't like to see Lucky with Sambath, and tried to take her back into the forest three times - only to find that Lucky would keep returning...

NEW YORK — Even though few Americans say abortion will be the most important issue for them in the upcoming election, nearly half say they need to know a candidate’s position on abortion before deciding their vote for president. A FOX News poll released Friday shows that 45 percent of Americans need to know a candidate’s position on abortion before they vote, while 53 percent say it is not something they need to know. ... The poll finds that 53 percent of Americans think abortion should be legal if the baby has a fatal birth defect, including 26 percent of...

Welcome to the Singles Thread! Several weeks ago, we mentioned the idea of interviewing individual members, in the interest of getting to know one another a little better. Freeper DCBryan1 gave me a holler and said he’d volunteer to be a guinea pig. Since he’ll be deploying before long (he can’t say where, else he’d have to kill you) but judging from his profile, he’s already very accomplished and has had some very interesting life experiences. (Either that, or a pathological liar with access to our country’s intercontinental ballistic missile system, in which case I’m moving to New Zealand.)...

Greetings, and Welcome to another Weekend Singles' Thread. This week is National Unmarried and Single Americans Week or National USA Week as the sponsors like to say. The official website for this week is at http://www.unmarriedamerica.org/usaweek/intro.htm . This "celebration" started on Monday and will run through the weekend. The celebration is being promoted by a group called "Unmarried America" that calls itself "an information source for the new unmarried majority." This group is trying to capture and represent the interests of all unmarried people and wants to reach out to those beyond traditional "singles" to include widows and widowers, homosexuals,...